Steps and activity tracking are available for:
- Gen2
- Gen3 and Oura Ring 4 with active membership
- iOS
- Android
How Oura Measures Steps
How Oura Measures Activity
How Oura Calculates with METs
What Is Active Calorie Burn?
What Is Total Burn?
What Is Activity Time?
What Is Walking Equivalency?
More Information
How Oura Measures Steps
The Oura Ring registers all your daily movements and their intensities, from light housework to heavy workouts. Oura's activity algorithms are fine-tuned to recognize steps from the gathered data and can identify step patterns within a very small window of time (30 seconds) with a high level of precision from your finger.
Starting March 26, 2025, Oura's activity algorithms were updated to function more like a pedometer. This enables Oura to more accurately distinguish actual steps from other activities that involve a high amount of hand motion. As a result, most Oura members will see a decrease in their daily step count of approximately 500 fewer steps as compared to their data before this date. Members with high activity levels will see the greatest change to their steps, approximately 2,000 fewer steps per day. Members who are less active will likely not see a change.
Other wearables or apps may show different step estimates because they use different methods of categorizing steps. Many trackers set a different threshold for what counts as "activity" while others categorize all movements as steps.
We always recommend analyzing your data through one device instead of making comparisons between different devices, due to the variation in trackers, algorithms, manufacturing processes, materials, sensor types, etc. Analyzing data from a single source can help you identify patterns when compared against your baseline measurements from that device.
How Oura Measures Activity
The Oura Ring uses a 3D accelerometer to track activity, measuring movement in all directions. For more accurate activity tracking, make sure the ring's sensor bumps are on the palm side of your finger. For non-step-based activities that are more difficult to measure (for example, yoga), manually adding your activities on the Oura App can improve the accuracy of your Activity Score.
On iOS, you can import your activities from Apple Health, and on Android, you can import activities from Health Connect by Android.
How Oura Calculates with METs
Oura calculates your daily energy expenditure using METs or Metabolic Equivalents. MET is a common measure used to express the energy expenditure and intensity of different physical activities. If an activity has a MET value of 4, it means you're burning four times as many calories as you would burn while resting.
The time you spend doing activities with specific MET values can be expressed as MET minutes. For example:
- 30 min x brisk walking (MET value = 3) = 90 MET minutes
- 30 min x jogging (MET value = 7) = 210 MET minutes
One MET corresponds with Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), or the total number of calories burned while your body is completely at rest. This is part of what your body needs to sustain itself while you're awake. To provide accurate insights, Oura uses 1.5 METs as the lowest threshold for activities that contribute to your daily active calorie burn. This ensures you're only tracking calories burned through physical activity, not the calories your body uses while at rest.
Sedentary vs. Physical Activities
Sedentary activities, like sitting or watching TV, range from 1 to 1.5 METs. Active calories, on the other hand, such as activities like household chores, walking the dog, or dancing, have METs above 1.5.
By using 1.5 METs as the threshold for active calories, Oura prevents you from logging large amounts of calories from low-intensity activities. This helps increase the accuracy of your Activity Score and other activity metrics without overstating calories burned during rest or light activities.
What Is Active Calorie Burn?
Active calorie burn is an estimate of the calories you burn over the course of the day through exercise or other activity. It captures the calories you've burned while walking, training, or partaking in other physical activities.
The calorie value associated with an AAD or Activity Heart Rate-recorded session is calculated from the selected activity type, duration, and intensity (based on heart rate). If heart rate is not available during the session, the intensity defaults to "moderate" and the calorie value is calculated based on average calorie burn rates for that type of activity. Activity intensity cannot be edited for AAD or Activity Heart Rate sessions.
For manually added activities, the calorie value is calculated from the selected activity type, duration, and intensity (easy, moderate, or hard, as selected by the user). Manually added activities can be edited afterwards to adjust their intensity levels.
Active calorie burn can be found on the Oura App's Today and Activity screens and appears as the numerator in your Activity Goal Progress.
What Is Total Burn?
Total burn is the total number of calories you burn over the course of a full 24 hours, resting or otherwise. Every day, Oura begins calculating your total burn at 4 AM as your metabolism starts to gear up for daytime functions and activities. This initial calculation is done using your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), which is the number of calories your body needs to sustain itself and all your vital functions. Additional calories are added to your total burn count as you continue to move throughout the day and complete any form of exercise.
Total burn can be found on your Activity screen, above your step count.
Keep in mind that if you don't wear your ring while engaging in physical activity, your active calorie burn may be slightly off. This is why we recommend manually adding activities or importing your activities from third-party apps to ensure that your active calorie burn is reflective of all your effort.
What Is Activity Time?
Activity time is a measure of your activity-based movement throughout the day.
Movement only counts as Activity time if it is imported through a third-party integration, manually tracked, or confirmed through Automatic Activity Detection.
Activity time can be found on your Activity screen, beneath your goal progress. If no activities are shown in the Today tab or Activity screen timeline, then no Activity time will be displayed. Tapping on Activity time will take you to the trends screen where you can view accumulated and average Activity time in daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly graphs.
Note: Starting May 21, 2025, the "Walking equivalency" measurement has been replaced by "Activity time" in order to provide a better representation of your daily movement. Activity time measurement is not applied retroactively, therefore you will not see a trend graph for it before the rollout date. These changes do not impact how your scores and contributors are calculated.
"Activity time" is only available for members with Gen3 or Oura Ring 4. Members on Gen2 will still see "Walking equivalency."
What Is Walking Equivalency?
Walking equivalency shows your daily activity as a walking distance. The Oura Ring calculates daily activity as an aggregate of all step-based and non-step-based movement. The distance shown is not the actual mileage traveled, but the equivalent walking distance of all your daily activities. Walking equivalency answers the question, "How much would I have had to walk to burn the amount of calories that I did?" Higher-intensity activities like jogging increase your daily walking equivalency more than low-intensity activities such as casual walking, even if the actual distance traveled is the same.
